I've Totally Got This
by TA Salmalin
Summary: About three things I'm absolutely positive. First, I've suddenly and inexplicably appeared in the Final Fantasy VII universe. Second, it's up to me to save the world. Third... I'm gonna need some help.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: Shamelessly self-indulgent, this is a tribute to all the girl-falls-into-canon-universe stories I read and loved as a teenager. This is not a fic that takes itself, or its content, too seriously. I hope it's as fun to read as it was to write!

* * *

I'm not a superstitious person, or prone to spouting clichés. But if there's ever a time where 'be careful what you wish for' applies, this is it.

Well, to be strictly accurate, 'it' was an hour ago, slogging through the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on my back. But this particular moment isn't looking too great, either.

"Excuse me, I think the dehydration is going to my head. What kind of shop did you say this is?"

The shopkeeper looks like he's seriously wishing he had some security here. "Materia. Like I said. Twice."

I've been wandering around in the freaking wilderness for an hour, there is sweat dripping off my nose, and I lost a shoe in a gully. So I'm possibly not at my best. But just like the last twenty times I looked (gaped), this little shack is full of faintly glowing orbs that can't possibly exist. "…huh."

This cannot be happening. Okay, yes, somewhere between the sixth replay of the original game and watching the teasers for the remake on repeat, I possibly wished that I could experience the world of Final Fantasy VII for myself. But that kind of thing doesn't actually _happen_.

"Look, if you're not going to buy anything, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. My valuable time is for paying customers only."

Paying customers, my ass. There isn't another soul in the shop. But I'm not rude, unlike _some_ people, and I don't mention it.

Besides, I have slightly larger concerns at the moment. Accepting, for the moment, the premise that I really am in Gaia, the first step is to determine where I am. There's mountains looming over the town, along with a mako reactor that's either really bizarrely constructed or not finished yet. With Shinra, it really could go either way. Also a sign that says 'Welcome to Corel', which, probably should have started with that.

Panic tries to set in, but this is one of those rare occasions where fanfiction prepares you for real life. I went through a Tenth Walker phase, and I've read plenty of secret twin self-inserts. Either (a) I'm in a coma, or (b) I was in a fatal accident and I've been reincarnated here by mysterious means. And whichever it is, the response is the same: act like I'm really here. Otherwise this could be a really long, really boring coma sitting on my ass, or a really short, really pathetic death from starvation. Or thirst, rather, since that would happen sooner.

Ah, and there's the panic again. I stumble, my bare foot catching painfully on a rock, and I go down on my ass in a puddle. Yeah, I'm just making one hell of an impression on the townspeople.

But I have no money—I suppose it's gil now—and a lot of immediate needs, like water, food, dry clothes and a left shoe. I don't know anyone in this world, know very little about how it operates when not on the verge of apocalypse, and somehow Shinra doesn't strike me as the kind of people to have a good welfare system in place.

"Okay," I say aloud, "first things first. Breathe. Good. Now get out of the puddle."

I stand up and try to brush off the excess water, though nothing really helps with the discomfort of wearing wet underwear. Still, it feels good to be doing _something_.

"You can do this. Just break it down into manageable tasks. You're going to need some help."

I look around, but the townspeople are pointedly not looking at me. I want to warn them about the reactor, especially Barret, but why should they believe me? And anyway, I'm not even sure where I am in the timeline. There's a lot of time between when Shinra first starts building the reactor and when it explodes. I think. And anyway, most of the information I know is super, super classified, and is zero help to me unless I secretly enjoy being interrogated by the Turks and having my body dumped in a river somewhere.

Which I don't.

"Just keep breathing. Think. Who is a total badass, definitely an adult at this time, and has a lot of time on their hands?"

* * *

In retrospect, I should have put some more thought into this. Yes, Nibelheim is conveniently also on this continent, and in a generally southwesterly direction, but a two-dimensional, pixelated map does not actually translate into actual terrain as well as one might think.

I definitely remember having to walk along the tracks for the mining carts in the game, so that seems as good a place to start as any. And it's marginally easier on my poor, shoeless foot than the rocky ground.

Still. This is going to be a _really_ long walk.

Also, turns out that that useful-stuff-just-lying-around-everywhere video game mechanic? Total bullshit. Two hours of scrounging and all I came up with was a blanket and a broken handle that must have once been attached to a shovel or a rake or something. I suppose it's better than nothing, but I was kind of hoping for a phoenix down.

Something tells me I'm going to need it.

Water turns out to be reasonably plentiful, and I'm thirsty enough not to have too many qualms about it being unfiltered. The mako reactor probably hasn't had too much of an opportunity to poison the environment yet, and maybe Gaia doesn't even have giardia.

The food situation is getting kind of dire, though. I'm not the outdoorsy type, but I had to read _Hatchet_ in seventh grade like everyone else, and I know you can eat wood sorrel and dandelion leaves and rock tripe because my dad's kind of weird, but for all intents and purposes I'm in an alien environment. None of the vegetation looks vaguely recognizable, not even suspicious mushrooms, and some of it is definitely menacing me.

Now why couldn't I have been stranded in Banora? At least they have apples.

Wait. _Are_ those mushrooms? I've done just enough random research on the internet to know that trying to judge which mushrooms are edible in the wild is a _terrible_ idea, but, desperate times, and all that.

Except, those mushrooms are moving. On tiny little mushroom legs.

Shit.

There's five or six of them now, little red caps on top of excessively long stems like some kind of bizarre periscopes. They look more like Star Wars droids than any sort of plant life. Fungi. Whatever.

Question: Am I too proud to run away from a slowly advancing squad of mushrooms?

Answer: Hell, no.

The mushrooms are coming out of a crevice in the mountain, not quite blocking the path but definitely getting there, so I hustle out to the very edge of the path and scoot around them, as quickly as possible.

They turn in unison, though they haven't got any eyes as far as I can see.

It's _extremely creepy._

"Heh heh," I say, waving my arms in what's hopefully mushroom for 'I surrender'. "I'll just, be going then. Yep."

As one, they sort of hunker down, their stupidly long stem things folding up like accordions.

I freeze.

And then the closest one explodes in a big yellow puff.

Naturally, I face this new development calmly and reasonably, by which I mean I shriek and fall over, scrabbling backwards to try and get out of range.

The other mushrooms go off, so the whole path is covered in a yellow haze, and then it's clear that nothing too terribly essential was lost in the explosions, because the mushrooms start advancing again.

Definitely time to run.

I flip over and scramble to my feet, only to find that my bare foot feels like I've been sitting on it for hours, the kind of numbness that has passed by 'you are about to be twitching madly' straight into 'you are about to sprain an ankle'.

It has to be the damn dust. It didn't get any higher than my knees, but my jeans are fairly thick (as evidenced by the fact that they are _still_ damp from the puddle incident), and the powder must need direct contact.

Judging by how my foot feels, I'm lucky I didn't breathe any of it in.

Except now the best I can manage is a cautious sort of shuffle, and that's not going to cut it with these mushrooms. They have to hop over the slats in the mining tracks, but that's not slowing them down enough to gain me any ground. Maybe crawling would be faster?

A bird trills, and I look up to see three of them perched on a ledge about ten yards away. Maybe they like to eat mushrooms?

One of them starts sparking. Oh, that can't be good.

There's a much louder, deeper cawing sound, and I'm not even surprised to see another bird, this one perched on the cliff on the other side of the path. It's big, really big, and though it doesn't seem to be giving off electricity it does have this thousand-yard stare that goes straight to my lizard brain. Have you ever been stared down by an owl? Not nearly as adorable as memes would suggest.

This is not looking good for me.

Maybe the various predators will get distracted fighting each other, but I don't want to bank on that. I could possibly sweep the mushrooms off the path with my stick (why didn't I think of that sooner?) but that still leaves the birds. I'm a lot more confident in my ability to fend off slow, semi-sentient vegetation than magical birds.

Off the path. Hmm.

I'm not in that strange part of the track where you drop onto all the items, I'm actually pretty close to the ground here. And this particular ground features a wide, fast-moving river.

I look at the birds, obviously waiting for my first idiotic move. I look at the mushrooms, who are still advancing with a hive-minded dedication that kind of reminds me of a zombie movie.

Well. With a busted foot, I can swim a lot faster than I can run, and a hell of a lot faster than I can fly.

I jump in.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been so confident in the safety of the water. I mean, you don't have too many water encounters in the game, but you also can't really go in the water. It would be just my luck to find a Tentacruel or something, though at least I would instantly die of terror and my suffering would be brief.

But it turns out there really are no water monsters on Gaia, or at least not any in this particular spot in the river. I'm a good swimmer, and since my only goal is 'away' I get a lot of help from the current. Eventually the mining tracks and rocks give way to grass and wide-open space.

I'm starting to get numb all over—this river is cold!—so I make for shore and just flop on the grass, soaking in the warm sunshine and enjoying my state of still being alive.

Finally, however, it's time to consider my situation.

It doesn't take as seasoned a video gamer as myself to know that tall grass equals danger. And to make things even more unfortunate. I simply can't remember what sorts of random encounters to expect. Those possessed Russian doll/Easter egg things are found in the grass, right? And the weird bubbly elephants? Ooh, are there chocobos near Corel? That would be useful.

I would literally kill for access to the wiki right now.

* * *

I have never experienced joy like when I finally stumble across a road. It's even paved, and it's all I can do not to fall down and kiss it.

Actually maybe I should. It's not like I really have anything to lose at this point. Maybe I should pray to the Goddess while I'm at it. Canon evidence suggests that sometimes she answers.

I pitch my blanket tent right there on the side of the road, just in case, but no one goes by. The road to Nibelheim must not be a terribly popular one. Or I'm lost. Or both?

But my luck has clearly turned, because only a few hundred yards from my impromptu campsite is a plant that looks very much like clover. Clover is edible, right?

It is.

I sort of follow the rules that anyone who's read one of those disaster survival book knows, touching the plant to my mouth and waiting, chewing and waiting, ingesting a tiny bit and waiting, but eventually hunger wins over waiting and I scarf it down in great handfuls.

Bliss.

With the river nearby for water, I spend a not-unbearably-uncomfortable night out in the wilderness and wake with the sun, ready to tackle the day's challenges. All the clover that I didn't eat last night goes in my stolen blanket, which I tie into a bundle and, in a fit of inspiration, put on the end of my stick. That's definitely a movie-approved method of makeshift transportation.

And speaking of transportation, is that a car engine I hear?

So close to the mountains, I hear the car long before I can see it. It's more of a jeep, really, when it finally crests the hill. I stick out my thumb, realize that's stupid, and wave my arms frantically.

Asshole just drives right on by.

"Dammit!"

I'm tired from walking for a whole day and that whole swimming-for-my-life incident, not to mention the inadequate diet, but I don't want to just sit here alone with my thoughts. So, more walking it is. The road is even going in approximately the right direction.

Assuming the sun rises in the east on Gaia the way it does on Earth. I didn't even think of that.

Oh well. The road only goes in two directions, so fifty-fifty I'm going the right way.

The sun is well on its way to setting and I've been ignored by two more cars when an honest-to-god cart comes down the hill. I'd say a horse-drawn cart, except those are definitely not horses. Mostly they look like really big cats.

The guy driving it pulls back on the reins so he can give me a good, long stare.

"Uh, hey," I say.

"Where are you goin'?"

"Nibelheim."

He thinks about that. "On foot?"

"Yep."

He looks at me.

I try to look as pathetic as possible, which, filthy, sunburned, and wearing only one shoe, isn't that difficult.

"Can you sing?"

"Uh, no. Well, yes, but very badly. I can tell stories, though! You've never heard these before, trust me."

He kind of harrumphs, then clambers down off the cart, efficiently releasing the cat things and setting up his own camp, complete with fire and some kind of mystery meat.

I try really, really hard not to visibly drool.

"Well?" he says, gesturing with a meat stick.

Naturally, every single story I've ever heard just leaks out of my brain. Then I see the cats, and launch into a recitation of a Thor fanfic I once read. Look, Frigga had a chariot pulled by cats, this is a cart pulled by cats, there's totally a connection there.

"Huh," he says, chewing thoughtfully. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

I cringe.

"Still, definitely never heard that one before." He hands me a meat stick, which I fall on like a ravenous animal. "As it happens, I'm on my way to Nibelheim, and it's a boring trip to make solo. You keep up with these stories, I'll give you a lift."

" _Thank you._ "

"And tell you what, these fellows" he pats the giant cats "do most of the hunting, but if you help with the prep work, I'll throw in some food, too."

"Yes, absolutely," I say, even though I have only the vaguest idea of the process of turning a live animal into food. I'll rip it apart with my bare hands if I have to. Though hopefully I won't. "You got a deal."

Over the next few weeks—yes, weeks—I frequently consider nominating this man for sainthood. He knows everything about foraging for food, he has a gun (and two giant cats) to discourage predators, and I really can't say enough about the superiority of even a bumpy, lumpy cart ride compared to walking however many hundreds of miles. I never would have made it on my own.

So I tell him the plot of every single Disney movie I've ever seen, my favorite books, comics, anime—anything except the Final Fantasy games. He's a nice guy; I wouldn't want the Turks coming after him. And maybe I'm being a little paranoid, out here alone in the wilderness, but. _Turks_.

We get passed by loads of vehicles going to and from Nibelheim—though he says no one actually goes _to_ Nibelheim, and actually they're just passing through there on their way to and from Rocket Town—and most of them are apparently Shinra vehicles.

"Most folks out here just can't afford fancy cars," he grumbles, obviously not overfond of Shinra.

Which is fair, I don't like them much, either.

He does share a few thoughts of his own, mostly when my voice gives out, and I'm able to piece together that most of the tragic backstories of the game haven't happened yet. Except Vincent, obviously. But the Wutai War has barely begun, and Sephiroth is kind of a nonentity, at least to the public.

Which is actually weirder than anything else about this little world-hopping adventure. Who doesn't know _Sephiroth_?

By the time we finally get there, I've pretty much lost my voice, and he very generously offers to take me back out of Nibelheim, obviously not believing that anyone, even someone as weird as myself, would actually want to go there.

"Thanks, but I'm all set. And really, I can't thank you enough for everything you've done."

He shrugs that off, and goes about his business, resupplying the tiny mountain town.

I square my shoulders and head off. I've got a mission to accomplish.


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: Some fighting-related violence and description of injuries

* * *

It ends up taking forever to find the Mansion. The town looks a lot smaller in a video game, and honestly I mostly didn't pay that much attention to the parts of Nibelheim that didn't involve slaying dragons in one hit during the Sephiroth flashback or actually acquiring Vincent. Once I get _in_ the Mansion I'll know exactly what to do, but until then…

Well, it's a small town, so the best that can be said there is that I do eventually find the Mansion.

Just in time, too, because it starts to snow. Though this compares to my previous experience with snow the way blowing out a birthday candle compares to Dorothy's arrival in Oz.

This must be what it's like to live in Canada.

I'd hoped to come up with a plan of attack before venturing into the Mansion, because I'm still armed with nothing but a broken stick and it's like a monster frat party in there. However, since it looks like my options are 'freeze to death behind this boulder' and 'hope there aren't monsters in _every_ room', I'm going to have to go with door number two.

It's verging on a total whiteout when I finally stumble up to the front door, and I can't feel my hands or feet. Or my face. After this, I'm moving to the tropics.

And then the door is locked.

Crap.

"Okay, okay, you can handle this. It's fine. Of course it's locked. But this isn't actually a video game, you don't need to quest for the key or anything. It's a drafty old building. There have to be broken windows, or a servant's entrance, _something._ Just go find it."

The wind howls and drops approximately two tons of snow on me.

Swimming out of a snow drift? Not as easy as Legolas makes it look.

Teeth chattering, I make my way to the side of the house, peering into windows. At the first one I almost give myself a heart attack, because there's a Dorky Face _right there_ and holy crap those things had not looked that scary in the game.

The third room is empty, but only has one of those stupid windows that open like a door, and it won't open wide enough for me to get through. I finally hit the jackpot at the tenth window, all the way on the opposite side of the mansion. There's no obvious signs of monsters—my old D&D instincts flare that it isn't the trap you _see_ that gets you, but I try not to think about that—and the window is broken, smashed in some storm.

The window's a bit too high, and the sill is slippery with snow and my numb hands are basically useless, but I do eventually manage to wiggle through. After some debate, I decide my faithful blanket is best used covering the window, and manage to secure the edges on the peeling woodwork.

Then I look around for something else to do. It's better indoors and while I'm not actively being snowed on, but it's still way too cold to just be standing around. Rubbing my hands together vigorously seems like a good start, but there's no improvement that I can notice.

Hmm. Back when I played Oregon Trail that was _not_ the cure for frostbite. Wasn't it gradual warming of the affected area? That sounds like a much better idea, especially since the affected area is everywhere.

There's no obvious heating system, and somehow I doubt Shinra's been keeping up with the electrical bill, but there is a great deal of dusty furniture, most of it wood, and some throw pillows and couch cushions.

People have been making fire for thousands of years. Surely I can figure it out.

I break up the chairs so I can form a little wooden teepee—hey, I was a Daisy, I know stuff—and picked all the stuffing and a bunch of threads out of one of the pillows. The cushions I arrange around myself sort of like a blanket. In the event I ever actually regain some body heat, they'll help to keep it in.

Then it's just a matter of rubbing sticks together.

For hours.

My shoulders are a solid ache when I finally, finally get a spark, and almost smother it in my enthusiasm. I cross all my fingers and blow as gently as I can, once, twice…

"Yes!" I shout, probably attracting every monster in the Mansion and almost blowing out my infant fire. Stupid. I have a few breathless moments, but nothing comes creeping in so I concentrate on coaxing the little flame on to bigger and better things. The stuffing doesn't burn very well or long, and I go through almost a whole other pillow before one of the chair legs finally catches.

Victory. I carefully pile on the bigger wood and warm myself. By the time I start to get seriously concerned that the floor is going to catch and the whole place will go up, I can feel my hands and my teeth have stopped chattering.

Time to poke a sleeping dragon. Or Turk, as the case may be.

* * *

Now that my brain is firing on more than one, frozen neuron, it's obvious that I can't follow the game mechanics to rescue Vincent. If I even make it to the safe, I'll last approximately two seconds against the Lost Number.

But I made it into the Mansion proper through a window, so it stands to reason that I can do the same for the basement. I'll just have to dig through the snow a bit.

Luck is with me, because my little fire adventure must have taken the whole night, and the storm has abated and there's enough sunlight to actually see where I'm going. The snowdrifts are as tall as I am, but I can use my stick to poke through them, tapping for hidden windows.

It just goes to show that, if you pick up something in a video game, eventually it will be useful to your quest. And with my blanket wrapped around my poor bare foot, the snow isn't quite as unbearable this morning.

I do eventually find a window, and clearing the snow reveals it to be just big enough to squeeze through. Hopefully. Now, I didn't want to break windows and alert monsters back when I was trying to hide out in the Mansion, but this is different. Besides, the only things in the basement are bats and zombies. The bats I can hopefully just duck, and as for the zombies, well… hopefully they're more your classic _Night of the Living Dead_ type and not the Snyder remake variety.

That settled, I aim for the center of the window and give it my best golf swing.

Have you ever swung a baseball bat full-strength into a fence post? Yeah.

" _Freaking ow!_ "

I clutch my arms to my sides, trying to restore feeling and control the aftershocks. Ow, ow, ow.

When I finally stop feeling like my arms are about to vibrate right off my shoulders, I settle down to think.

My expertise in window-breaking is confined to television. Elbows is a favorite, but no way in hell am I doing that; I'll probably break my arm instead. Also diamonds, which I obviously don't have. Hmm, but maybe that's a hint that I'm going about this wrong. Maybe something sharp and pointy will work better than blunt force. There's plenty of rocks around here, it's a mountain range.

Some scouting turns up a pointy rock, which I apply—carefully!—to the edges of the window this time. Trying to pry the glass out gets me nowhere, as does scraping the surface of the window. But a tentative second attempt at smashing yields a tiny crack. The angle's bad, but a few more hits and a piece of glass falls and shatters inside the basement.

I wait, but there's no other sounds. Maybe the bats and zombies are really sound sleepers.

It takes some effort to clear the glass out, even with my blanket to protect me, and I'm pretty sure I've missed some of it, but it's as good as it's going to get.

Wriggling through the window, I'm sure I missed some, because it gouges out a half dozen deep scratches in my arms. It's painful, obviously, but more concerning is the fact that this place used to be Hojo's lab. I probably have twenty infectious diseases already, and then I'm going to sprout tentacles and explode.

Freaking Hojo.

The drop to the floor is a little further than I anticipated and I land in a heap. Except for the tiny square of light from the window, the corridor is pitch black, and that instinctive human fear of darkness is bad enough without knowing for a fact that it is teeming with monsters.

No one's here to judge me, so I drop down to my hands and knees and crawl. I sincerely hope the faint rustling by the ceiling is just my imagination, but it can't hurt to make myself a smaller target. Plus I'm less likely to blunder into something in the all-consuming darkness.

It's really impossible to tell how far I crawl before there's a faint glow at the end of the tunnel, and I hurry toward it like a moth to a flame. Hopefully not that much like a moth, though, given… Yeah. Bad analogy.

The light turns out to be a torch, and the fact that it is still burning in the basement of a mad scientist's lab that's been abandoned for years should be more disturbing than it is, but that light illuminates the door to Vincent's resting place—ha—which means I've made it.

This is, of course when I hear The Sound. Right behind me.

Like every bad horror movie victim I've ever seen and mocked, I turn in slow motion. Emerging from the inky shadows are a jumble of rotting, unnaturally shaped limbs, attached to rotting, unnaturally shaped zombies, dripping slime and who-knows-what-else.

I'm completely frozen there on the floor, just watching them lurch along, and it's not until one actually touches my foot that I can breathe again.

I use most of that first breath to scream, and kick out at the zombie limb, which does precisely nothing to the zombie because its body has roughly the structural integrity of a bag of jello. It does light a much-needed fire under my ass, though, and I scurry along the floor like a desperate rat, really extremely motivated by the goopy hand that's still got hold of my foot.

The zombies are, unfortunately, fast. They don't seem too concerned that I'll escape, as much as one can discern human facial expressions from that… that, and are just kind of keeping pace, but I'm definitely not escaping in any sense.

The zombie finally gets bored, hungry, whatever, and lifts me right off the ground. Resisting the _totally justified_ urge to give into panic, I make a wild grab for the doorknob and actually get it. The door creaks open ominously, letting in just enough light to illuminate the dusty, cobwebby coffins.

Seriously?

I was kind of hoping that with all the ruckus Vincent would wake up, but I guess terrified screams are probably par for the course around here. Getting two fingers around the doorframe is a poor substitute, but it will have to do.

The zombie is starting to get annoyed and yanks, almost pulling my arm out of its socket. I can't believe I don't lose my grip, and flail around trying to get my other hand on the doorframe.

I'm slightly distracted when something _bites my foot._

I shriek loud enough that it _should have_ woken the dead, thanks a lot Vincent, and finally get both hands on the doorframe and pull as hard as I can. Unlike the zombies, I've got solid muscles and bones under my skin, and maybe they slipped in my blood or something because I tumble into the room, minus a bite-sized chunk of my left foot.

Freaking _ow_.

Gritting my teeth, because it's not over yet, I flip onto my back and find that although the door is invitingly open, the zombies are hovering well back from it, making menacing gestures but showing no signs of attempting to voluntarily breech the threshold.

It's things like this that make Vincent my favorite.

"You should be more wary of venturing where monsters fear to tread."

I just about jump out of my own skin, banging my half of a left heel painfully on the dirty stone. "Holy crap! Make some noise!"

Vincent doesn't respond. He does honestly look kind of creepy, sitting up in a coffin with his glowing red eyes and his shroud-like cape and the emaciated thinness of his face and did I mention the coffin thing? He really does look like a corpse that just decided to sit up and stop talking.

But.

 _Vincent Valentine_.

"I'm a big fan," I say. "You have your own tag on my tumblr."

He huffs and lies back down. The coffin lid falls back on its own with a crash.

I would kick myself if I wasn't worried about the state of my foot. "Idiot. Might as well have said you have pictures on your wall or something. Now you just sound like a creepy stalker."

The coffin makes a muffled noise. It sounds like 'leave'.

I glance out at the zombies, still squelching menacingly. "Yeah, that's not happening."

The coffin doesn't respond.

My blood drips on the floor.

The zombies squelch.

"Well. This sucks."

* * *

The zombies do eventually get bored and wander away, and the balance between fear of blood loss and agonizing pain tips in favor of my tearing strips out of my precious blanket and trying to patch up my foot a bit. Heels are awkward to wrap.

"Look," I say to the coffin, "the whole world is about to go to hell. I'm talking meteors from space, a planet-wide plague, WEAPONs awakening, Hojo getting a cult following, serious, serious shit is about to hit the fan. There's a pretty short list of people capable of dealing with all that. The list is basically you."

Judging by the silence, Vincent is not moved by the prospect of being a hero.

"I hadn't intended to just bug you out of an early grave, but I will if I have to."

In the ongoing silence, I'm reminded that Vincent has been sleeping for like twenty years, and isn't likely to get bored in the next ten minutes. Grr.

"Okay, how about this? If you're not motivated by altruism, what about vengeance? Hojo is still out there, head of the science department, screwing over everyone. Did I mention he has a fanclub? And really, he's responsible for at least three of the apocalypses. Apocalypsi? That's not a word I ever thought I'd need to know the plural of."

Stupid coffin is still stupidly silent.

"Seriously! I didn't play Before Crisis, but Fuhito is indirectly his fault, possibly directly, I don't know, and Sephiroth was _definitely_ —"

"Sephiroth? You know Sephiroth?"

I blink. "Didn't I open with that?"

It's hard to tell, with the wild hair and the high collar, but I think he might be having a facial expression. A facial expression of 'you're an idiot'.

"Right. I _meant_ to start with that, but I got distracted by my near-demise. I don't know Sephiroth _personally_ , obviously, but I can tell you all about him. I know loads of classified stuff. It's one of the reasons I had to be so careful who I told, because I don't want the Turks to find out."

The 'you're an idiot' vibe intensifies.

"Okay, yes, so I cleverly ran to a Turk. But you're, you know. Retired. Anyway, can we focus on rescuing Sephiroth? It'll solve several major apocalypse-level problems all by itself."

He's, wait for it, silent.

"Too soon? Forget I said anything about rescuing anyone. This can be pure information dump, scout's honor."

"Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Um…" I hadn't thought of that.

"This building must be full of information on Sephiroth. You are trying to deceive me." He goes to close the lid again.

I jump forward, catching my fingers painfully in the descending lid, but if we start playing a waiting game I'll definitely starve to death first. "No! I mean, yes, probably, but I haven't been in the mad science part of the mansion yet. Actually, I know _way more_ about the situation than what's in the mansion, which is mostly crap anyway. Hojo has this thing he's trying to trick Sephiroth into doing, but that's kind of the middle of the story and I don't want to start there."

"Are you with Shinra?"

"Uh, no?"

"Are you a scientist?"

"Definitely not."

"So why do you know Project S even exists?"

"Ah. Yes. Good question." I consider lying. Then I consider how good Vincent must be at telling when people are lying. "See, I'm from another… planet. And on my planet, _this_ planet is a video game. Do you guys have those? It's sort of like an interactive movie. And I've played the games, okay, some of the games, so I know a bunch of stuff about some major shit that's about to happen. Because a lot of these games take place in the future."

"…"

"I know that sounds _slightly_ preposterous—"

"Leave. Now."

"—but I'm telling the truth! Look, I'll prove it to you! I didn't play Dirge of Cerberus because I suck at first person shooters, but I did watch the youtube compilation of the cutscenes."

"…"

"That's the story about _you_. Okay, so, you got assigned to guard duty in Nibelheim… no, wait, that's the middle. Gast Faremis finds this body in the Northern Crater, and… that's probably too much backstory. Can I have a second to organize my thoughts?"

He inclines his head infinitesimally.

Okay. The tragic story of Vincent Valentine. Where does it start? "Way back when, a Shinra biotechnologist was investigating what all of her colleagues thought was a crackpot theory: that Gaia had WEAPONs, hybrid biological/mechanical superpowered beings that could rise to the Planet's defense if it were ever threatened. That scientist was Lucrecia Crescent, and she, together with her mentor, Grimoire Valentine, discovered two of those WEAPONs..."

Vincent doesn't so much as twitch through the whole story, not even when I get to his own death.

"…and then Lucrecia jumped into a mako pool, and you were locked up here, and Hojo took Sephiroth to Midgar, and, yeah. That pretty much catches you up."

"I must think about this," Vincent says, and uses his superhuman reflexes to push my hands out of the way and shut himself in the coffin.

"Well, that's fair," I say, to the lid. "Just, maybe not too long? We aren't all functionally immortal. And while this room is actually pretty warm, relatively speaking, and monster free, which trust me I truly appreciate, it's not exactly the Ritz, you know?"

Of course he doesn't answer.

So now it's just me, the lingering frostbite, the gnawing hunger, and the throbbing agony of my mutilated foot. I almost don't even notice the foot long scratches from my trip through the window.

Isn't this fun.

* * *

I must have fallen asleep, or more likely passed out, because the next thing I remember, something is touching my feet. And one thing about me: I'm really, really ticklish.

I shriek and kick out, hitting something, and suddenly remember the zombies, and scream and kick again. It's just Vincent, though, looking supremely unimpressed.

Right.

It occurs to me that 'ticklish' shouldn't be the primary thing my foot is feeling, but aside from being really, extremely dirty and covered in some weird green goop, it seems to be fine. No blood, no pain, and no hint of bone that I was pretending I hadn't seen, because I don't really want to contemplate a world where I can look at my own foot bones.

Vincent's holding a bottle with just a thin layer of weird green goop inside, so that clears up some of the mystery. "Potion?"

He nods.

"That is some potent stuff," I say. "We don't have magic potions where I come from. I'm sorry I missed it."

"I'm sure there will be a repeat experience," Vincent says, dry as grave dirt.

"So you do have a sense of humor." In a creepy, Turk sort of way. "I'm guessing you have some questions?"

"Is Sephiroth here?"

"In the Mansion or in the town? Well, either way the answer is no, so, I guess it doesn't matter."

"Where is he?"

"I can't be one hundred percent certain, but at this time he should be obliterating the curve in the SOLDIER program. In Midgar."

"Well, then," he says. "You can answer my questions on the way to Midgar."

Well. Awesome.


	3. Chapter 3

Warnings: Brief but kinda gross descriptions of hunting for food and eating it.

* * *

Once Vincent Valentine decides something, he doesn't mess around. Actual years of lying in a coffin brooding or communing with the Planet or whatever the hell he was doing, and now it's been approximately eight seconds and he's already halfway out the door.

My first steps are a little tentative, but that potion is really something, because there's no more pain.

Could do without the goopy mud feeling, though.

"Maybe we should search the Mansion?" I call after him. The guy is already out of sight. I can just tell this is going to be a real fun trip. "Food? Blankets? Maybe a shoe?"

There's no answer.

"Weapons?" I shout, trying to hustle up the stairs. Vincent's the kind of badass that monsters don't even bother challenging, they just run and hide, but that's not going to help a whole lot if I fall too far behind.

"Weapons?" he asks, from behind me.

"Yah! Wear bells or something!"

He looks distinctly unimpressed.

"Right, weapons. There's a summon materia in the safe upstairs—and a monster!—and I know there's at least one gun lying around somewhere. Some kind of rifle or something, and I think Cerberus is here, too. Or will be, sometime before Dirge of Cerberus. It's like a three barreled… gun. With a sort of chain thing. I kind of got the impression it was special to you."

That probably didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I'm talking to the air anyway. He disappeared sometime during my rambling explanation.

Well, I'm still looking for shoes, and he'd just better do that appearing out of nowhere thing trick if I end up in mortal peril. Again.

The bedrooms are actually reasonably well stocked, like maybe the former inhabitants left in a hurry, and I manage to scavenge two duffel bags with wide enough straps that they could be carried like a backpack, some musty but serviceable clothes, and shoes that are only one size too big.

No food, though.

Vincent is waiting by the front door, with a rifle in one hand in Cerberus in the other.

"I didn't know if you'd want… stuff," I say, lamely, dropping the empty duffel on the floor in a cloud of dust.

I sneeze.

"This will suffice," he says, strapping the rifle on one side of his belt and the whatever-Cerberus-is on the other side. There's also a pouch thing that he fills with bullets. Right. Which is a thing he obviously needs.

Why the hell is this stuff still lying around? Probably some sick joke of Hojo's.

I shrug and leave the bag where it is. Vincent's obviously going to do what he wants, and he knows a hell of a lot more about his needs than I do. Well, possibly. In any event, he's functionally immortal, so maybe he doesn't even feel the cold.

"Let's go," he says, pushing the doors open and striding out into the snow.

"You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would," I say, because I'm a colossal moron. Why do I always feel the need to poke at everything?

"You know far more than you should," he says, not pausing in his march through the snow. He can't walk on it like an elf, but somehow it doesn't seem to be inconveniencing him at all, like it's melting out of his way of something.

Leaves a nice path, though.

"I will determine what you know and how you know it," he says. "And if you're a threat then I will kill you."

Delightful.

* * *

I had to stuff my shoes with newspaper so my feet didn't slide around, and it turns out that actually helps keep them warmer. Considering Vincent's strategy seems to be to orient towards Midgar and walk until we get there, I'm grateful. I never appreciated how high mountains were until now. And how snowy.

I struggle and wheeze my way straight up a cliff, or at least it feels that way, and the other side looks just as steep. I'm seriously considering just sliding down on my bum. Probably Vincent's too dignified for that, but I'm sure not.

"So talk," he says.

"I think my lips have frostbite," I say.

He gives me a look.

"You think I'm joking," I say, but very quietly. "Can it wait until we get out of the snow?"

He opens his mouth, probably to say no, and then a great noise reverberates through the mountains, setting off a number of small avalanches.

I have a few ideas what it might be, but I really, really hope they're all wrong.

"Um," I say, before a _freaking dragon_ appears.

It flies out from a cave or something, huge and green and seriously, how can those wings move that body? It should be really cool, but actually it's really, extremely terrifying.

"Crap," I say, very helpfully. Apparently Vincent's badass aura doesn't affect dragons. But he can totally take this guy? Right?

Vincent is shaking, and sort of glowing a bit, and also… getting taller?

"Oh, double crap," I say, backing into the dubious shelter provided by an overhanging rock. "Oh, this is so not good."

The dragon banks towards us, spewing fire. The snow evaporates in an instant, turning the peak into a tiny sauna, and I barely get around the other side of the boulder in time.

Vincent, or whoever Vincent is now, I didn't get a good look, leaps over the flames and onto the dragon's head. Probably not Chaos, then, he has wings.

The dragon lets out a furious screech, Vincent roars in challenge, and just hearing the sounds of the battle is more than enough for me, I have no intention of looking. I do touch the boulder I'm hiding behind, and burn my fingers. It's that hot still.

Just.

 _Dragon_.

Holy _shit_.

I cower behind my boulder so long that snow starts falling again, and it gets cold enough that I'd better start moving if I plan on ever moving again. It's been kind of quiet for a while.

Ominously quiet.

There's a shadow, way down at the base of the mountain, that could be the two combatants.

On the one hand, I want exactly no part of that fight. On the other, I'll freeze pretty quickly up here.

So, down it is.

I manage to sled down most of the slope on my duffel, landing face-first in a snowdrift at the bottom. It's freezing and kind of embarrassing, but I don't break anything so I'll count it a win.

Though I can't _wait_ to never see the Nibel Mountains _ever_ again.

Turns out the shadow was, in fact, the dragon, looking really dead and way too big to be real. Vincent, however, is nowhere in sight.

"Hello?" I call, softly. No need to alert every predator in the area that there's something helpless and tasty here.

There's no response, but I can hear a sort of shuffling.

Probably I don't want anything to do with that, but I don't see that I have much choice.

I round the dragon's head, and yeah, I so did not want to see that.

Vincent is looking blue and purple and sort of fluffy, so this must be the Galian Beast. It (he?) is taller than I expected.

My brain keeps trying to supply these little observations, so I don't have to acknowledge that he's _eating_ the dragon.

I used to love the Swiss Family Robinson, which has an illustration of them stripping the blubber off a whale. It was so big that they could actually walk around inside it.

This is just like that, Galian is ripping hunks of flesh off wherever he can reach and stuffing it into his mouth, carving out a hole in the side of the dragon.

I have to run a few feet away and throw up. That's just… ewwwwww.

"I am never eating meat again," I promise myself, rinsing my mouth out with snow.

Ergh.

I hide in the snow for a bit, then my newly born survival instincts take over. The snow is cold. The dragon, even though it's dead now, is not.

I creep over by its head—on the opposite side of the teeth, just in case—and lean against it's warm, scaly hide.

And wait.

* * *

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know Vincent is shaking me.

I'm stiff and chilled and my butt feels frozen from sitting in the snow, and my brain must be sluggish as well because it takes me a whole minute to realize why Vincent is looking tense and I'm sleeping on top of a dragon.

"Uh," I say, and have to concentrate on taking deep breaths through my mouth to keep from throwing up again. That certainly won't help the situation in the least. "So that was Galian. Bit taller than I expected."

Vincent just sort of blinks, which is understandable, because that's possibly the most inane comment ever.

"So are we good to go then?" I ask, deliberately not looking at the dead dragon. There is nothing there I want to see, and I so, so don't want to know how much of it got eaten. "Burning daylight, and all that?"

Vincent blinks again. Clearly he very much does not want to think about it, either, but doesn't know how to move past the elephant in the room. Dragon, rather.

I cast about for a distraction. "Also cold here? Time to move?"

He looks at me.

I look at him.

And then he starts walking, leaving me scrambling to keep up.

Vincent is really resourceful, which is surprising in the sense that I always thought of him as a city Turk, but I also traveled across half a continent because of his ability to handle weird situations, so, maybe not that surprising after all. He finds a cave and gets a fire going, and I drink melted snow and try and ignore the hunger pangs. I'm helped with that by my sincere desire to never eat again after the afternoon's… events.

One more day of freaking out, I promise myself, curling up in all the clothes that I have with me. Then I'll deal with it.

* * *

Except Vincent doesn't want to deal with it, and is that man ever a master of avoidance. Every time I so much as _think_ of bringing up the topic of his demons, he vanishes. It's very frustrating.

Add that to his Bella Swan levels of brooding, and it's a good thing he's pretty.

Okay, that's not fair. He's had a ridiculously shitty life, and he really is being very helpful just now when he has no good reason to be. I wouldn't have lasted one day out here by myself, and as character flaws go, a tendency to eat carrion is… weird, and gross, but not dangerous. To me. Hopefully.

And Vincent pays attention to my needs, even if he refuses to talk about anything at all, so small, dead creatures and pathetic, half-frozen vegetables have started mysteriously appearing by the fire at night.

My resolve to avoid eating forever lasts approximately two seconds once I get my hands on something edible. The first small rodent-like thing doesn't get eaten—turns out you can't put it in the fire with the fur still on, oops—but the second one doesn't turn out too bad.

Really, having to skin a whatever this is and eat it on a stick really puts the whole devouring-a-dragon thing in perspective. That was pretty disgusting, but so is everything about the process of transforming small woodland creature into food. Those in glass houses, and so forth.

Vincent doesn't eat when he's Vincent-shaped, as far as I can tell. It's probably not dangerous, considering he was in that coffin for however many years and seems… functional, if not fine.

Still, all things considered I'm grateful to leave the mountains behind. If I never see snow again, it will be too soon. The grass looks so much less frightening now that I've seen the Nibel Mountains.

"Things are looking up," I say, which, _stupid._ The actual second the words are out of my mouth, there's some movement in the grass, could be literally anything because all I can see is the grass swaying, but just like that Vincent is big and purple and just gone.

I slump down on the grass, alone on a giant, monster-infested plain with an entire ocean between me and Sephiroth.

"Okay," I say to the sky, "that one was on me."

Most of my wilderness knowledge is acquired from tv shows and books. I've been camping, but only the kind where your car is twenty yards away and you have a portable grill with you. It's basically a miracle on par with walking on water that I started that fire in the Mansion.

I guess I'd thought that, since I wasn't actually on the mountains and not standing in a snowbank, there was no need to be concerned about the cold, or repeat that miracle.

Wrong. So, so wrong.

The sun goes down with no sign of Vincent in any form, and so does the temperature. There's no wood here that I can see, and starting a fire in the middle of all this dry grass seems like a fantastically bad idea anyway, so instead I pace back and forth, ten steps up and ten steps down, rubbing my arms and trying not to panic.

Vincent could make fire with magic, which would be super useful _if he were here_.

Eventually I start to get really, really tired, enough to forget why it's a bad idea to curl up in a tiny, shivering ball and try to sleep until the sun comes back up.

* * *

I wake up wonderfully, gloriously warm. The sun is just edging over the horizon, enough that I can see the morning mist evaporating. It doesn't seem to be giving off all that much heat yet, though.

So, why am I warm?

I sit up, or rather, try to. I'm pinned to the ground by some kind of restraint.

The first thing I do is panic. Just, total, utter panic, with flailing and screeching and thrashing and _oh god Hojo has me I am so, so fucked._

Then there's a long, low, displeased sort of growl, right in my ear.

It cuts right to that recently resurfaced lizard brain, and I freeze completely, like a rabbit before a hawk.

Okay, okay, try think. Announcing my helplessness to every predator in a hundred miles isn't going to do me a bit of good, and neither is lying here trembling until something worse happens. I'm not a rabbit, I'm a human being with a brain that I should try actually using.

Right. Deep breath.

Even Hojo probably doesn't conduct experiments out in the middle of fields. I'm not on any kind of exam table, I'm outside. I can move my arms and legs, obviously, as evidenced by my earlier flailing. And even if there's apparently some kind of monster behind me, I haven't been eaten _yet._

There's a distinct huff of warm air on the back of my neck, and my skin tries to crawl off but I refuse to panic again, just, no panic allowed.

Maybe I'm being saved for food later? Like that yeti thing on Hoth?

Not a helpful direction for my thoughts to take. Okay. Gather the evidence. Determine the best course of action based on said evidence.

The thing restraining me is a limb around my waist. It looks more or less like an arm, not a zombie limb or a Marlboro tentacle, so there's a bit of good news already.

It's also a familiar shade of purplish-blue.

What.

My assessment of the situation takes a dizzying, ninety-degree turn.

I haven't been captured, I'm not in danger. Vincent must have come back during the night, still Galian-shaped, and… realized I was freezing to death? Acted on some dormant pack instinct?

Right on cue, Galian stirs, and _licks_ the back of my neck, sort of like a ginormous, bipedal, weird-ass dog.

Ergh, now I'm all sticky and gross.

Responding to something—or nothing, I don't even know at this point—the arm starts to shimmer, and presumably the rest of him, too, and there's a truly disgusting amount of cracking and squelching as bones realign and skin stretches and I really, really need to stop thinking about this. I sincerely hope that Vincent is unconscious for these transformations.

He doesn't move at all, so I'm still basically pinned to the ground, but I'm no longer in fear of my life. Actually, I could think of a lot worse things than effectively cuddling with Vincent Valentine. He's tall and inhumanly warm and the cape is way softer than it looks.

I make sure to memorize the sensation, because sure enough, about two seconds later he tenses and then throws himself backwards, rolling smoothly to his feet and looking at me like I'm the guilty party here.

I try to look as unimpressed as possible. " _Now_ are you ready to talk?"

He looks at the ground. "I'm sorry."

It's probably rude to roll my eyes, but I do it anyway. "Look, I'm not mad about… whatever you think I'm mad about. I told you that I already know practically your entire life story; I definitely knew about the demon stuff. I'll admit that it's a little… stranger… experiencing it in real life rather than just reading about it, but this isn't a dealbreaker. All I'm trying to say is, you've pretty much been in that coffin the whole time you've had these abilities, right? So you haven't really had to live with them, as such. Maybe we can problem-solve."

He blinks.

"So… I was thinking, you're sort of like the Hulk. Which, forget I said that, it would take too long to explain the reference. What I mean is, you haven't been eating or sleeping or making any concessions to temperature or weather, so far as I can tell, so maybe your body is taking care of that stuff for you. Maybe if you ate something now, while you're, uh, Vincent-shaped, you won't feel compelled to turn into Galian and try and eat a whole dragon. Or," I wave my hands in his direction, "uh, you kind of have feathers in your teeth. Wasn't going to say anything, but… yeah."

He looks pretty revolted, but after making sure he doesn't have anything else on his face he just takes a deep, steadying breath and moves on. "Perhaps," he concedes.

Well, at least he's thinking about it. Given all the weird shit he has to deal with post-Hojo, he's actually coping pretty well, all things considered.

"Maybe a tent?" I suggest hopefully.

"No towns," he says.

Oh, well.

He stands there for a whole minute, not moving, not even breathing as far as I can tell, and I'm a little worried about what's going on in his head, but when he's done with his internal monologue (though I guess in his case it's more like a… quintologue?) he fixes me with this really, really intense stare.

"…yes?"

"Tell me about Sephiroth."

So I do. I start with Crisis Core, then everything I can remember from the wiki pages on Before Crisis, through the original game, then Advent Children, and top it off with the Deepground part of Dirge of Cerberus, jumping back and forth in the timeline when something new occurs to me. It takes actual days to get through this massive info dump, and he doesn't respond, doesn't scoff, hardly even blinks.

When I've finally wound down, that's when he starts in on his million and one questions. It reminds me that he used to be a Turk, because he's extracting information I didn't even know I had, sorting out cause and effect, when certain projects must have started, and every single tiny detail about Sephiroth's entire personality.

Breaking it all down takes us all the way to Costa del Sol, across the ocean, across more grass and rivers and mountains. All the way to Midgar.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Vincent is scouting for accommodations in the slums, I think I've at least impressed him with the length and breadth of my delusions. I don't blame him for finding my story rather unbelievable, but I'm pretty sure he'll accept it in the end. He believed enough to come to Midgar, and there's dozens of corroborations just waiting for him to find them.

The apartment's kind of a dive, but it is the slums. At least it has four walls and a roof.

"So what's the plan?" I ask, checking under the bed for cockroaches. Knowing Shinra, they're probably mako-enhanced and breathe fire or something.

"The plan?"

I dust off my knees before facing him. "Yeah, you know, the plan. I think it's pretty clear that the world would be better off if it _didn't_ almost end three or four times in the next twenty-odd years. You know as much as I do now, and you have that admirably twisty mind. Where do we start?"

"Hojo is dead."

"Yeah, probably a good start. Wait. _Is_ dead? Like, already?"

"I broke into his office and shot him this morning."

I blink rapidly a few times. "Okay, okay, processing… well, that was easier than I expected. And, he didn't turn into anything squishy?"

"Jenova's influence must not have taken hold yet."

"Huh, guess so." I'm still kind of weirded out by the casual discussion of murder, but, well, _Hojo_. He's completely insane and doesn't even want world domination, he just wants to annihilate all life on the Planet as part of his weird, perverted fantasies about rotting alien corpses, and eww did I just go to a bad mental place there. Besides, it's already done. "So, did you figure out how old Sephiroth is then?"

"It is difficult to access information without being caught. I am not longer familiar with the systems, and none of my old access codes or contacts are... available."

For Vincent, that's practically a speech. He must be feeling a lot better about the world now that Hojo isn't in it. Or frustrated by all these new-fangled computers.

"The Wutai War you mentioned has actually been going on for several years, though war has not officially been declared," he says.

"Probably calling it 'quelling an uprising' or some such."

He inclines his head. "Sephiroth has joined the SOLDIER program and is advancing quickly through the ranks, but he has not yet been deployed."

"Okay, well, I told you how confusing the timeline is, so I really have no idea what that means for upcoming events. I _think_ the War ended pretty quickly once Sephiroth was deployed, but I can't be sure. Did you hear anything about Genesis and Angeal?"

He shakes his head. "I was only able to glance at Hojo's notes before the alarms went off. He doesn't care about Hollander's projects."

"So basically we need more information. Can't you just, like, cut your hair and put on a suit?"

He gives me a look.

"Kidding." Sort of.

"I would be recognized," he says. "Either as the assassin from today or from my old IDs."

"Well if _you_ can't go… wait. You want _me_ to join the Turks?"

He scoffs. "Of course not."

* * *

I'd like to state, for the record, that I hate Vincent Valentine. Just, everything about him.

"Hello. I'd like to enlist in the army." I try to force a smile.

The recruitment guy looms behind his desk, looking supremely unimpressed. "Oh?"

You and me both, buddy. "Yes. I'm excited about the opportunities a career with Shinra has to offer."

Here in Midgar, you can tell the recruitment offices by the way there are posters of Sephiroth plastered over every surface, looking tall and intimidating and like a model for a very naughty magazine. Isn't he still a teenager in this time? It's actually really disturbing.

Recruitment guy catches me looking at the posters—not that there's anywhere else _to_ look—and draws all the wrong conclusions.

"I see."

I fight to keep my expression neutral. I don't care what this random guy thinks of me, anyway.

"Any special skills?"

"Uh, no." Not any relevant ones, anyway.

"Prior experience?"

"No."

"PT score?"

"Huh?"

He glares.

"Look, can't you just give me a flyer or a brochure or something?"

He glares harder, all intimidating bulk and stony silence, but I've out-waited the best of them.

Finally he relents and tosses me a packet, then goes back to his paperwork.

I skim it quickly. It's all pretty straightforward, and somewhat terrifyingly simple.

Citizen of Midgar of one of its territories? Well, I'm _in_ Midgar, and Vincent's hard at work whipping up fake documents, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Desire to further the interests of Shinra, Inc.? Well, Old Man Shinra probably has a strong interest in his own continuing existence, so really, if you think about it… yeah, still not me, but I can fake it.

Still possessing both eyes, four limbs, and the usual number of fingers and toes? Yep, and probably they just want to know that so Hojo can take them off later, the bastard.

Or, I guess that's Hollander's job now.

After that it's just the physical standards, and holy crap that's a lot of work. I'm not exactly in great shape, though my recent cross-country jaunt has helped a lot. Still, sixty sit-ups in a minute? A _minimum_ of twenty good push-ups? Shit, I have to run a whole mile and a half?

At least I'm a good swimmer.

And I'm going to make sure Vincent knows how pissed I am about this.

* * *

Somehow a guy who was tortured for years and locked in a coffin for almost two decades isn't too impressed by my whining about having to run. Go figure.

He does suggest a training program to get me up to speed (ha).

The little brochure said that testing is every Friday morning at 0600, and I decide to give it a shot. If by some miracle I pass, that's a whole lot of running I can dodge, and if not, I can start putting together a narrative of plucky slum lass who works hard and tries her best and never gives up. Sort of reality tv meets Naruto. Maybe someone in Shinra has a heart.

Or they'll eventually get tired of looking at me and figure the Science Department can always use fresh bodies.

"Don't get into SOLDIER," Vincent says, when I'm on my way out.

"There is absolutely no chance of that happening."

And I was so, so right.

It starts out with a train ride above-Plate, with a bunch of people in suits pretending to hold their nose at me. Classy. The guy in charge of testing obviously had the same idea, because I get stuck in a group of other slum-dwellers, obviously desperate to change their circumstances.

And then, hell.

My only consolation is that I'm not that absolute worst. One guy collapsed from heat exhaustion and had to be taken to the hospital. I at least finished, though I puked twice and that bastard discounted half my push-ups. Even though I totally did them right, no cheating.

Vincent is, again, unsympathetic as I whimper and try to stretch my screaming muscles.

Whatever. "Zack carried Cloud across half of Gaia. Sam carried Frodo all the way up Mt. Doom. I've got this." I grit my teeth and reach for my toes.

* * *

So that was obviously a dumbass thing to do. I dutifully follow Vincent's training program, which is agonizing but I don't pass out, which is nice. As a kind of reward for good behavior, or something, he starts lecturing me on the history of the world, since I don't know most of it and am about to go undercover. He tries to give me some tips about materia, but it just won't work for me. Go figure. It's just my luck to appear in an imaginary world with cool magic and be unable to use it.

As far as I can tell, he's just wandering around the slums all day talking to people. He's the Turk, I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

"So is Aerith here?" I ask one night.

"Yes, I found the church."

I was sort of hoping we would be early enough to save Ifalna, but I didn't actually think we would be. Still, it's disappointing. "Did you ask her about the Healing Rain?"

"She was expecting me."

"Huh. Well, she is an Ancient."

Vincent glared.

Guess he hadn't listened when I talked about how cool she is. "So is that a yes on the Rain, then?"

"I wasn't able to explain to her how it's created, and was unwilling to explain that she originally made it after her death. She promised to look into it."

"Well, that's something, I guess. That's Plan A for sorting out Genesis underway, how about Plan B?"

He glowers. "We should just kill him."

"I'm not sure that's actually possible. He's supposed to be chosen by the Planet."

"According to you, so am I."

"I'll take this to mean that you haven't asked Chaos if there's anything he can do. That being Plan B, if you recall."

He turns away, which is answer enough.

"Well, I'm going for a run. If you're going to kick off the Apocalypse trying to assassinate Genesis, please feel free to do so in the next forty-five minutes or so."

* * *

I'm lucky Vincent is such an obvious badass, because the slums are really rough. No one bothers our apartment, which is right near the train, and he earns or steals enough money that I can take the train up daily to run in some of the parks.

Yes, there are parks. Nothing green grows below the Plate, except presumably in Aerith's church, but above-Plate there are small, fanatically organized walking paths with scrawny shrubs and some very sickly-looking trees. It's as good a place to run as any, especially once I get some cleaner clothes and can pass as an above-Plate person.

It's very crowded, like glimpses I've seen of Tokyo or Beijing on tv, and there's a haze of mako pollution over everything. It makes running very interesting, and I have a designated trash bin about halfway through my route to be sick in.

The food is also… weird. It still falls in the same basic categories of grain, vegetable, meat, but nothing is quite familiar. There are nights where I wake up salivating over a cheeseburger, and I don't even like cheeseburgers.

But I get used to it. My stomach settles, my body gets stronger, and I make it through a whole run without hurling. It might be time to show up for the Friday morning test again.

Also, I've finally found the silver lining in joining Shinra. It may be full of immoral, world-destroying assholes, but the barracks are located above the Plate. That thing is seriously creepy. Like, instant claustrophobia. Any time I have to actually go down to the slums again, it's a conscious struggle not to cower instinctively away from it, like it might fall and crush me any moment.

And of course, it doesn't help that I know it will, in fact, fall and crush people at one point, though hopefully not me personally. Or anyone, for that matter, since that's one of the things I want to prevent. If by some miracle we haven't fixed things by then, I'll push the Turks out of the helicopter myself. That was a seriously jerk move.

Objectively it's kind of impressive how hardy the people of Midgar are. They could give Sunnydale residents a run for their money. If it isn't your run-of-the-mill pollution, random monster encounters or economic oppression, it's Genesis invading Shinra HQ, Diamond WEAPON attacking, Meteor, Deepground, the list goes on. It's a wonder anyone was even left to live in Edge.

But none of that is going to happen—well, at least not the stuff that isn't already happening. Vincent's going to stop it, and I'm going to help.

Which means I have to get into the army, the sooner the better. Even Vincent can't cure all the world's ills flying blind.

* * *

"Well, go me, I guess," I say, showing Vincent my test results. "I scored two points more than the bare minimum, and my documents passed muster, so that's pretty much that. The recruiter didn't come right out and say that they're desperate for more warm bodies on the front, but it was pretty well implied."

"Even with Hojo gone, you should avoid the SOLDIER program."

"Yeah, there is less than zero chance that I'm getting anywhere near SOLDIER. I don't think the mako-enhancement even works on women. How do you want me to contact you? Did you get a burner phone or something?"

He gives me an unimpressed eyebrow. "Text only in an emergency. It doesn't matter what, so long as it's nothing incriminating. I'll find you."

"Okay then, that's not ominous at all."

"For regular reports, there is a bar popular with recruits at the first train stop below the Plate. Once a week, during your leave."

"Great, because I really want to spend my two free hours in a gross, overcrowded bar."

"Two free hours ensuring the peaceful future of the Planet," he reminds me.

"Right. Guess that puts things in perspective."

* * *

Being in the army sucks. There is a rule for absolutely every freaking thing, someone is always shouting at me, and I'm spending even more time running and jumping and exercising than I was when I was training for the test. "Rest" time consists of classwork that might as well be called Indoctrination 101, or, Yay Shinra.

The one thing I had braced myself for was terrible food, but it's not actually that much worse than what I scavenged on the walk here or could buy below-Plate. However, the sergeants have this fantastically annoying habit of periodically making us get our food, then just toss it in the bin and go back to training. It's supposed to prepare us for adverse conditions, when we might not have access to food, but I'm pretty sure it's just sadism.

I am not thriving here and never expected to, so the blatant favoritism doesn't annoy me as much as it does some others. Anyone who shows any kind of promise at all gets recruited into one of the actually relevant branches, like the pilots or the Turks or the much-coveted SOLDIER. They scarcely bother to pretend that the regular infantry is anything more than cannon fodder.

It's three weeks before I've earned the privilege of two unsupervised hours, and that's just enough time to get to the bar that's even more horrible than I imagined.

"Next time you can join the army," I say, slumping on a stool across from Vincent. There's an art form to slumping on a stool, and I'm determined to master it. "It sucks."

His mouth quirks in what could almost be the start of a smile. "Did you learn anything else?"

I decide to sit up straighter; my hair is sticking to the table and I really just don't want to get any more closely acquainted with it. "You were right about the regular troops; they're getting slaughtered in Wutai, and Shinra isn't too broken up about it."

"Are you in any danger?"

"Not yet, but we should wrap this up within the year, to be on the safe side. I guess they used to have two years of training, it was like a school, and that's gotten shorter and shorter as the war goes on. They've pared the whole curriculum down to just thirteen months, now."

"Can you get access to any of the SOLDIERs before then?"

"Highly unlikely. They don't waste their time with the lowly infantry, and I've already been warned about a thousand times not to get involved with them, er, romantically."

"Oh?"

I try not to shudder. "Mako poisoning. There were pictures."

His face goes all tense, which is about when I realize that that might apply to him, too, in which case that was a super tactless way to break the news.

"Um."

"But you do hear about the SOLDIERs?"

"Some. They're basically like celebrities, especially the three big ones. Gossiping about Sephiroth is a favored leisure activity in the barracks, and the other two are fairly well known. Angeal has a reputation of being kindhearted, and a lot of guys think he's their way into the program. That one's popular enough that I think he must have already taken Zack as a student, though no one's mentioned him by name. And Genesis is, well, moody and kind of terrifying, so there's always a story going around about him."

"Hmm."

Like a switch being thrown, the bar full of desperately carousing young recruits suddenly starts filing out. "Guess it's time to get the train."

"Next week, same time," Vincent says.

* * *

One thing I can say about military life, it thrives on patterns. I don't really get less miserable, but I get used to it. And I always know what I'm supposed to be doing and what's expected of me. Every second. Of every day.

The weeks only distinguish themselves by my conversations with Vincent.

I confirm that Zack is a SOLDIER Third Class, and dutifully pass this on. Apparently he has the highest PT score of any recruit (Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal never enlisted, they were accepted straight into the SOLDIER program), and didn't even finish Basic before Angeal snatched him up.

Angeal kind of shot himself in the foot there, because now everyone is falling all over themselves to match Zack's feat and earn his attention.

The next week I'm able to tell him all about the most notorious recruit, who reduced the sergeant to a sputtering rage in about ten seconds, cheated with great creativity at virtually every exercise, then got hauled up for disciplinary measures and mouthed off to the board, too. The Turks had to be called in.

I'm about ninety-five percent certain that's Reno.

It's good to know a little more about where we are in the timeline and how many potential allies are nearby, but the first actually useful bit of information comes the following week. Since SOLDIER is practically everyone's incentive, we get a fair amount of information about the program. Hojo's death is officially announced as a lab accident (President Shinra barely bothered to pretend sorrow at his loss) and Hollander has stepped up as Head of the Science Department and the SOLDIER program. There were concerns it would shut down without Hojo's genius, but apparently Hollander managed to crib from his notes and throw something together.

"Good," Vincent says. "Events should not deviate too much from your foreknowledge."

"So Genesis is still the next big crisis. Any progress on that front?"

"Aerith needs more time."

He doesn't say anything about talking to Chaos. I decide not to press. "Have you considered popping down to Banora and asking the Goddess? She'll probably talk to you."

Vincent ignores that. "There may be another way to approach the issue."

"…and that is?"

"Why did you not mention the problem of Jenova to me while we were still in Nibelheim?"

"Oh, uh. Because I'm an idiot? And you were in a bit of a hurry, as I recall."

"It seems that even if the worst comes to pass, and Genesis goes mad and tries to drag Sephiroth with him, without Jenova's influence matters will not escalate to the same degree."

I think that over. "That makes sense. The big Jenova crisis isn't imminent, but as far as I can tell she's been influencing Sephiroth his whole life. Getting rid of her sooner can only help."

"I'll leave tonight."

"Wait, what?"

He gives me a look like I'm being unforgivably slow. "For Nibelheim. To destroy Jenova. You said you are unsure when the failed rocket launch occurs, so it is better to go sooner."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good point. It will be a massive pain in the ass to get her off this planet without the rocket."

"Obviously."

Jerk. "Give Cid my best. He's pretty cute, you know."

Vincent glares, then glides out of the room. How he does that in such a crowded bar, in those boots, I'll never know.

* * *

Two days later—two days!—Sephiroth is deployed to Wutai. All the barracks are emptied to go with him; the infantry, the SOLDIERs, the poor kid who joined yesterday, Genesis and Angeal and Zack, Tron, who is considered the first SOLDIER since all the secrets about Project G aren't widely known.

Oh, and me.


End file.
